Practice is Key

With CLAT at the doorstep, Amandeep Rajgotra shares last-moment tips that will help candidates ace the exam and get that perfect score

Law as a profession is in great demand now a days, it is because of dynamic social and economic circumstances in the country. It is one of the favorite career options among youngsters as it is neutral to all the streams (commerce, science, and humanities). Lawyers hold great esteem in the society as when everything which fails, the last hope for citizens is the legal system. In India, it is a dream of every law aspirant to crack the Common entrance law Test. This year CLAT 2019 will be conducted on May 26, 2019 in offline mode. Apart from being financially lucrative, Law is an adventurous and competitive field. Degree in law brings great career opportunities and respect in society.

An Aspiring law student must make a clear strategy to get success in such a competitive entrance like CLAT. Some of the important ones are as follow.

• Keep track of previous year question papers: The CLAT is very unpredictable. The students are advised to check the previous year cut offs as it will help to focus on the most important sections of the paper. It becomes all the more important to brush up the fundamentals.
• Time management: It is a major factor before appearing for an exam as the limited time will be given to complete the exam. Sometimes if a student desires to attempt all the questions then it may lead him/her nowhere because the test has negative marking too which can affect the overall score and ranking of a student.
• Give equal importance to each section: All sections in the exam are important, however, a smart test taker will first attempt all the questions at which he/she is confident and will come back to ones which are lengthy and time-consuming. This strategy goes with CLAT as well, there is no sectional cut off which need to be cleared
• Practice is the key for success: Accuracy is one thing which will decide the final result for the exam. The students must aim at least 150-200 question with 90 per cent accuracy. Practice will boost your confidence level and to get an idea of the difficulty level of questions, just try to solve questions from previous year question papers and sample papers.
• Appear for mock test: To analyse your strength and weakness, the students must appear for the mock test. This will help to get comfortable with the original environment which a student will face on the D-Day. This will make you familiar with the weak and strong areas as well.

Here are some tips to get a perfect score in each section of CLAT, 2019:

• Legal Aptitude: It is the most important section of the paper which is further divided into two sections
• Legal reasoning: The students need to read the question cautiously and understand them before start attempting.
• Legal knowledge: The students need to memorise all the set of legal terminology and important articles. The main focus of the candidates should be the recent news and latest cases which are before the Supreme Court.
• General Awareness: In this section, a student can score easily and it is a time -saving section. A smart student can utilise the time more to other significant sections of the exam.  This section will include a total of  50 questions from static GK and current affairs. The questions which are asked are more factual and direct.
• Numerical ability: With regular practice, a student can solve most of the questions asked in this section. There would be a total of 20 questions in this section. This will have all the basic mathematical concepts like number system, time and distance, probability, algebra, coordinate geometry, number system, percentages. To score good marks in this very section, students must try to solve more and more quantitative questions. The maximum time which should be spend on this section is 15 minutes.
• Logical Reasoning: It is an unpredictable section. The unfamiliarity with the questions can make difficult for the students. The total number of questions asked will be 40, which will be based on coding-decoding, family tree, arrangements, critical reasoning. Critical reasoning is the most important part of this section. 32-35, with 90 per cent accuracy is considered as a good attempt for this section.
• Verbal ability: This section will test the reading skills of the student. It is a scoring section as it will have reading comprehension and questions based on the same which can award you marks.  To score high one should focus on increasing good word base. And another main aspect of this section is English usage. This will test the student’s command over the English.
• Vocabulary: Another important aspect of the Verbal section is Vocabulary. The paper has a lot of questions on synonym-antonym.
• Grammar: The questions are on English usage. Spot the errors and phrase substitution are the major type of questions asked. Out of the total 120 minutes that you get, you should spend around 20-25 minutes on this section in which you should try to attempt about 25-30 questions.

The writer is National Product Head Law, Pratham Education, New Delhi